The Colosseum

This is the third posting today in an attempt to get myself up to date with my blog diary! You may be relieved to hear that there will only be one more post from Rome!

We were at the Colosseum which had been shut early for some unknown reason.

As our guidebook stated, "Here the imperial passion for bloody spectacle reached its peak of excess." Emperor Titus in AD 80 declared 100 days of celebratory games which involved the massacre of 5,000 wild beasts!

We walked lesuirely around the outside of the Colosseum as we were denied seeing the inside! There were some beautiful looking horses to take you for a ride in a carriage around Rome. There were also a number of street sellers selling gifts etc to the tourists. A Police car drove past and I have never seen anybody move so quickly as the street sellers did - they whistled a signal to each other before hastily throwing their wares into their bags and making a run for it!

I don't know where I stand on street sellers - I would imagine that most were immigrants and by selling on the street they are most unlikely to be paying any tax but then they are pretty self sufficient and don't go around begging. Yet, if I were a shop keeper selling gifts in Rome I wouldn't be too impressed!

Our Daughter relaxes outside the Colosseum.

We walked all the way round.

A rare photograph of me with Our Daughter - just to show that I really did go to Rome!

Another photo of the Colosseum.

The Arch of Constantine - which marks the victory of the first Christian emperor over his rival emperor Maxentius.

Another view of the Arch.

We left the Colosseum and walked back to the hotel.

We passed some statues en route.

As we arrived back outside our hotel we heard some music and saw that a crowd had gathered nearby.

We went to check out what was happening and saw some street dancers.

They were very fit! Which was more than we were having dieted on Italian cusine and ice-cream!

To purge our guilt we had however walked everywhere!

There is one more post to do about our stay in Rome and that is our visit on the last day of our stay to Piazza del Popolo. This was very near to our hotel and for that reason we had kept it till last so that we could have a quick look around before catching a taxi to take us to the airport for our flight home.

We had a wonderful time in Rome and I would recommend it as a place to visit despite the greedy Centurians and the smelly river!

Until next time.

June.